Russian soup mogul begs Trump to save his $200 million canned-food empire from Putin
An American businessman is urging President Trump to help save his $200 million canned-food empire after Russian authorities took over his company and seized its assets.Los Angeles-based Leonid Smirnov, who fled Soviet communism in the 1970s, says he’s in a race against time to save Glavprodukt — the Campbell’s of Russia — which he founded in 1999 and built into a household name in his homeland.“What’s happening with my company is a raid under a government seizure and confiscation attempt,” he told The Post.And if it can happen to him, he said in a warning to Trump, it can happen to any of hundreds of US-owned companies operating in Russia, after President Vladimir Putin set his sights on foreign businesses after the invasion of Ukraine.About a dozen companies have been put under “temporary management” in the past three years.Smirnov’s Glavprodukt was the first American-owned company to be targeted, and is famous across the motherland for its canned soups, vegetables, fish, and meat.And it was a key part of Smirnov’s business empire, which includes a $20 million, 14,000-square foot, Tuscan-style mansion once rented by Paris Hilton in tony Beverly Park in Los Angeles.Things changed in October last year, when three strangers arrived at its headquarters to take charge.They were sent on Putin’s orders.
His decree ordered that Glavprodukt and other assets owned by Smirnov’s American company Universal Beverage be put under “temporary” Russian management.Since then, he said, the Moscow-based company — which employed 1,000 workers across three factories — had begun taking losses for the first time.Overall, he estimates the company has lost as much as 30 percent of its value.“We basically have this company being destroyed on a daily basis,” said Smirnov, describing how key staffers have been fired for not being loyal enough.In the past month, the country’s prosecutor general accused him of illegally syphoning millions of dollars to t...